doc/hcar/Cabal-201604.tex

   1 \documentclass[DIV16,twocolumn,10pt]{scrreprt}
   2 \usepackage{paralist}
   3 \usepackage{graphicx}
   4 \usepackage[final]{hcar}
   5
   6 %include polycode.fmt
   7
   8 \begin{document}
   9
  10 \begin{hcarentry}{Cabal}
  11 \report{Mikhail Glushenkov}
  12 \status{Active}
  13 \participants{\href{https://github.com/haskell/cabal/graphs/contributors}{Cabal contributors}}% optional
  14 \makeheader
  15
  16 \subsubsection*{Background}
  17
  18 Cabal is the standard packaging system for Haskell software. It specifies a
  19 standard way in which Haskell libraries and applications can be packaged so that
  20 it is easy for consumers to use them, or re-package them, regardless of the
  21 Haskell implementation or installation platform.
  22
  23 \texttt{cabal-install} is the command line interface for the Cabal and Hackage
  24 system. It provides a command line program \texttt{cabal} which has sub-commands
  25 for installing and managing Haskell packages.
  26
  27 \subsubsection*{Recent Progress}
  28
  29 We've just released versions 1.24 of Cabal and \texttt{cabal-install}. 1.24
  30 incorporates more than a thousand commits by
  31 \href{https://gist.github.com/23Skidoo/62544d7e0352037749eec7344788831c}{89
  32   different contributors}. Main user-visible changes in this release are:
  33
  34 \begin{itemize}
  35 \item Nix-style local builds in \texttt{cabal-install} (so far only a technical
  36   preview). See
  37   \href{http://blog.ezyang.com/2016/05/announcing-cabal-new-build-nix-style-local-builds/}{this
  38     post} by Edward Z. Yang for more details.
  39 \item Integration of a new security scheme for Hackage based on
  40   \href{https://theupdateframework.github.io/}{The Update Framework}. So far
  41   this is not enabled by default, pending some changes on the Hackage side. See
  42   \href{http://www.well-typed.com/blog/2015/08/hackage-security-beta/}{these}
  43   \href{http://www.well-typed.com/blog/2015/07/hackage-security-alpha/}{three}
  44   \href{http://www.well-typed.com/blog/2015/04/improving-hackage-security/}{posts}
  45   by Edsko de Vries and Duncan Coutts for more information.
  46 \item Support for specifying setup script dependencies in \texttt{.cabal}
  47   files. See
  48   \href{http://www.well-typed.com/blog/2015/07/cabal-setup-deps/}{this post by
  49     Duncan Coutts} for more information.
  50 \item Support for HTTPS downloads in \texttt{cabal-install}. HTTPS is now used
  51   by default for downloads from Hackage.
  52 \item \texttt{cabal upload} learned how to upload documentation to Hackage
  53   (\texttt{cabal upload --doc}).
  54 \item In related news, \texttt{cabal haddock} now can generate documentation
  55   intended for uploading to Hackage (\texttt{cabal haddock
  56     --for-hackage}). \texttt{cabal upload --doc} runs this command automatically
  57   if the documentation for current package wasn't generated yet.
  58 \item New \texttt{cabal-install} command: \texttt{gen-bounds}. See
  59   \href{http://softwaresimply.blogspot.se/2015/08/cabal-gen-bounds-easy-generation-of.html}{here}
  60   for more information.
  61 \item It's now possible to limit the scope of \texttt{--allow-newer} to single
  62   packages in the install plan, both on the command line and in the config
  63   file. See \href{https://github.com/haskell/cabal/issues/2756}{here} for an
  64   example.
  65 \item New \texttt{cabal user-config} subcommand: \texttt{init}, which creates a
  66   default \texttt{\textasciitilde{}/.cabal/config} file.
  67 \item New config file field: \texttt{extra-framework-dirs} (extra locations to
  68   find OS X frameworks in).
  69 \item \texttt{cabal-install} solver
  70   \href{https://github.com/haskell/cabal/pull/2873}{now takes information about
  71     extensions and language flavours into account}.
  72 \item New \texttt{cabal-install} option:
  73   \href{https://github.com/haskell/cabal/pull/2578}{\texttt{--offline}}, which
  74   prevents \texttt{cabal-install} from downloading anything from the Internet.
  75 \item New \texttt{cabal upload} option
  76   \href{https://github.com/haskell/cabal/pull/2506}{\texttt{-P}/\texttt{--password-command}}
  77   for reading Hackage password from arbitrary program output.
  78 \item Support for GHC 8 (NB: old versions of Cabal won't work with this version
  79   of GHC).
  80 \end{itemize}
  81
  82 Full list of changes in Cabal 1.24 is available
  83 \href{http://hackage.haskell.org/package/Cabal-1.24.0.0/changelog}{here}; full
  84 list of changes in \texttt{cabal-install} 1.24 is available
  85 \href{http://hackage.haskell.org/package/cabal-install-1.24.0.0/changelog}{here}.
  86
  87 \subsubsection*{Looking Forward}
  88
  89 We plan to make a new release of Cabal/\texttt{cabal-install} approximately 6
  90 months after 1.24 -- that is, in late October or early November 2016. Main
  91 features that are currently targeted at 1.26 are:
  92
  93 \begin{itemize}
  94 \item Further work on nix-style local builds, perhaps making that code path the
  95   default.
  96 \item Enabling Hackage Security by default.
  97 \item Native support for
  98   \href{https://github.com/haskell/cabal/pull/2540}{``foreign libraries''}:
  99   Haskell libraries that are intended to be used by non-Haskell code.
 100 \item New Parsec-based parser for \texttt{.cabal} files.
 101 \end{itemize}
 102
 103 We would like to encourage people considering contributing to take a look at
 104 \href{https://github.com/haskell/cabal/issues/}{the bug tracker on GitHub}, take
 105 part in discussions on tickets and pull requests, or submit their own. The bug
 106 tracker is reasonably well maintained and it should be relatively clear to new
 107 contributors what is in need of attention and which tasks are considered
 108 relatively easy. For more in-depth discussion there is also the
 109 \href{https://mail.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/cabal-devel}{\texttt{cabal-devel}}
 110 mailing list.
 111
 112 \FurtherReading
 113   Cabal homepage:\hfill\url{https://www.haskell.org/cabal/}\\
 114   Cabal on GitHub:\hfill\url{https://github.com/haskell/cabal}
 115
 116 \end{hcarentry}
 117
 118 \end{document}